Reagan Plea Fails To Budge Line-item Veto

WASHINGTON — A Senate filibuster against the line-item veto entered its second day after an attempt to end the debate failed Thursday despite an appeal from President Reagan.

The Senate voted 57 to 42 to stop the filibuster -- three votes shy of the 60 required by parliamentary rules.

Reagan maintains that the line-item veto is needed to check federal spending and reduce the deficit.

Opponents argue that giving such authority to the presidency would upset the constitutional balance of power between the legislative and executive branches of government.

While the filibuster continued and Sen. Robert Dole, the Republican leader, promised to make a second effort to end it Tuesday, lawmakers assessed the political fallout from Wednesday's breakdown in budget negotiations.

Like the line-item veto, those negotiations search for a solution to a deficit now projected at $227 billion.

''The dust is still clearing,'' said Sen. Lawton Chiles, D-Fla., referring to the breakdown in negotiations.

In a letter to Sen. Mack Mattingly, R-Ga., Reagan made the case for a bill that would grant him line-item veto authority as part of a two-year experiment.

Because it would enable a president to delete objectionable provisions of spending bills on a piecemeal basis, a line-item veto could frustrate a favorite congressional tactic of combining in a single legislative vehicle a proposal a president favors with another that he detests.

The president is then faced with a choice of all or nothing.

In his letter to Mattingly, the chief sponsor of the veto bill, Reagan wrote that the authority would be a ''powerful tool against wasteful or extravagant spending.''

Reagan also noted that 43 state governors exercise some form of line-item veto.

Urging the Senate to approve the veto, Mattingly said, ''Our sincerity about taking substantive action to control the federal deficit is on trial here.''

Mattingly's proposal is co-sponsored by 46 senators.

On the Senate floor, Chiles delivered a 64-minute speech that summed up the arguments against the line-item veto.

Not only would such a veto undercut the Jeffersonian principle of separation of powers, Chiles said, but passing a law is not the proper legal channel for bringing about such a major change.

A constitutional amendment, and the national debate it would entail, is the more appropriate way to transfer power, Chiles said.

''I hope we don't make some temporary experiment and trifle with the Constitution,'' Chiles said.

A line-item veto would not so much empower the president as some ''faceless, nameless eyeshade fellow down at'' the Office of Management and Budget, Chiles claimed.

Chiles offered another argument.

''The deficit is a problem of absence of will,'' he said. '' . . . You can adopt a line-item veto, but that won't fix the problem.''

Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., the leader of the filibuster, claimed that the line-item veto has the potential for abuse as an administration lobbying tool. According to Hatfield, the veto would convert the president into an ''all-purpose banker'' who could hold ''mortgages'' on the votes of senators who disagreed with him.

While senators argued about the line-item veto and deficits on the Senate floor, angry remarks about deficits and budget breakdowns dominated the behind-the-scenes talk.

Donald Regan, the White House chief of staff, called the breakdown in congressional budget negotiations ''disgraceful.''

Childish was the word Speaker Tip O'Neill used to describe the behavior of the Senate's Republican negotiators at the conference.

The recriminations suggest that the chances are ''a little less than 50-50,'' in Dole's words, that Congress can approve a budget that would set deficit-reduction targets for spending bills.

At a caucus for Senate Republicans, participants apparently sought to mend the political wounds they suffered when Reagan retreated from their proposal to save $28 billion by freezing cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security and pensions.

Reagan's retreat on COLAs came as part of a framework developed at the White House to expedite a budget.

The Republican caucus also tried to rally support for Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

Afterward, Dole repeated his complaints about the White House framework and ruled out new taxes despite some caucus talk in favor of them.

''We're not going to give up 80 percent of our position for 20 percent of theirs,'' Dole said, referring to the House and his claim that Democrats are pledged to make up the COLA savings with additional domestic cuts.